September 29 @ 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Event Navigation

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater has shown us that Poems Are Teachers. Join Aeriale for an engaging morning exploring how we can integrate poetry into our daily work with young children to help them become more powerful writers in all genres.

Aeriale Johnson, SJAWP Fellow, spends her days learning from children at Washington Elementary School in San José. She holds a National Board Certification in Early/Middle Childhood Literacy.

Revising your writing (without killing it)​For 3-5 Grades

​Donald Murray once said “Writing is revising.” But why do we resist it? Hate it? Go straight to editing? Participant teams will use mentor texts to play “editorial staff” in an inquiry lesson on revision. Try out revision​ strategies on ​your own discovery draft or free-writ​e​​. Come away with tools for revising and editing ​all kinds of writing. ​Even like revising? Maybe!

Secrets to Award Winning Middle School Stories from a Contest InsiderFor 6-7 Grades

Your middle school students love writing stories, but how can we teachers help them up their narrative game? One approach we’ll take is to look at the handful of winning stories selected from two local middle school writing contests: the Stanford Anthology for Youth and the $1000 for 1000 words contest. What traits do these “mentor texts” – written by 10- to 14-year-olds – share that make them stand apart? And how can we connect our conclusions with the narrative and character work of Lucy Calkins and her Units of Study?

Jay Richards, SJAWP Teacher Consultant, teaches 8th grade at Central Middle School in San Carlos School District.. Jay is also the Editorial Committee Chairman in charge of judging for the local $1000 for 1000 Words fiction contest for grades 6-12 (www.bluefire.org).

Personal Narrative, Revised – Writing Love and Agency in the High School ClassroomFor 8-12 Grades

In this workshop, we will explore how personal narratives can be re-conceptualized to connect students’ self-stories to their academic writing and their relationships with school. Several student facilitators and the lead teacher will co-present. We will identify narrative templates and counterplots as they emerge in student narratives about love, (including the template that our class named the “why me” story) and its relevance to research on youth and trauma. We will explore three student cases where revision took different forms, such as revisions to narrative truth and to the initial equation love = struggle. Finally, sharing our writing, we will discuss why these stories connect to our sense of agency and our work as educators.

Dr. Bronwyn LaMay is a Teacher on Special Assignment, Santa Clara Unified School District. Her book Personal Narrative, Revised: Writing Love and Agency in the High School Classroom won the 2017 NCTE Russell Award for Distinguished Research.